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SOME LITERARY 
AUTOGRAPHS 



SOME LITERARY 
AUTOGRAPHS 



ABOUT A GREAT 
BOOK 

WITH SOME LITERARY 
AUTOGRAPHS 




PRIVATELY PRINTED 

AT CEDAR RAPIDS IOWA 

FOR THE FRIENDS OF LUTHER ALBERTUS 

AND ELINORE TAYLOR BREWER 

CHRISTMAS NINETEEN FOURTEEN 



ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY- FIVE COPIES PRINTED 
ILLUMINATED INITIAL BY ELINORE TAYLOR BREWER 



<z 



:>1 



COPYRIGHT 1914 BY 
LUTHER A. BREWER 



THE TORCH PRESS 

CEDAR RAPIDS 

IOWA 



D[C;>:!9!4 






ABOUT THE CLOISTER AND 

THE HEARTH AND SOME 

OTHER THINGS 




CLOISTER AND THE 
HEARTH 

NE of the world's great 

books is Charles Reade's 

The Cloister and the Hearth, 

It is also one of our favorite 

mes — precious to us for two 

sons: Because of the contents, 

ecause we read it together for 

/] the first time in those tender days 

whei^love was young and the future 

years" looked rosy and full of bright 

promise. 

The book was first published in 
London in 1861, in four volumes, as 
was the custom with English novels 
at that time. The parts as originally 
issued were found by us one hot July 
day four years ago in the cellar of an 






old bookshop in Oxford street, Lon- 
don. They were ragged and dirty, 
and one not a book lover would have 
given at most but a few pennies for 
them. They were quickly "attached" 
to the present owners but at a pretty 
good sum considering their shabby 
condition. Within an hour the prec- 
ious sheets were placed in the hands 
of London's best binders, Sangorski 
& Sutcliffe, and two or three months 
later they were sent across the ocean 
"clothed and in their right mind," 
and they now are books that need not 
hang their heads in shame in any 
collection. Since then, as opportu- 
nity offered, original autograph let- 
ters of the author have been picked 
up and inserted as frontispieces in the 
four volumes. 

The thought has come to your two 
friends that at this mellowest season 
of the year you may not consider it 
amiss to share with us some of the 



8 



pleasures we have enjoyed in the 
possession of this great book as now 
embellished. Hence this booklet 
telling of the letters it now contains 
and giving choice extracts from the 
book itself. 

To the first volume we have at- 
tached an especially characteristic 
letter, one that gives evidences of 
that fighting spirit so dominant dur- 
ing all the years of Charles Readers 
life, 1 8 14- 1 874. He was a militant 
chap, ever busy in efforts to right 
some real or fancied social wrong. 
Most of his novels were written to 
that end. In Hard Cash he takes up 
the abuses of the insane asylums; in 
Ifs Never Too Late to Mend he 
preaches against the English prison 
system ; in Put Yourself in His Place 
he treats of abuses connected with 
trades-unions and labor conditions. 
In The Cloister and the Hearth he 
pictures with vivid reality the social 



conditions of the fifteenth century. 
With rare insight and great power of 
sympathy he makes the old times live 
again. We here find pictures of 
what the lives of men and women of 
that period must have been. As an 
appreciative critic has said: "His 
book is truer than history; for while 
based on historical records, it reflects 
with life and color, not alone out- 
ward fact but also the workings of 
minds and hearts." 

Reade warred continually with 
critics and publishers. His attitude 
toward the latter may be judged by 
this letter which is the insert in vol- 
ume one: 

92 St. George's Road 
S. Belgravia 
July 2nd. [1865] 
Dear Sir: 

Without the words "during the 
legal term of copyright" the half 
profit agreement is "a partnership at 
will," and either party can dissolve 



10 



that partnership : this done the copy- 
right rests in the author, & he can 
treat with another publisher. But 
the sly insertion of the words "during 
the legal term of the C[opyright] 
make[s] it not a partnership at will, 
but a partnership for a definite 
period to-wit 42 years at least, & a 
partnership on terms singularly un- 
just to the author, & favorable to the 
publisher, for under it you cant com- 
pel him to publish fresh editions of 
your work yet he can hinder you 
from publishing through any other 
channel. I should advise you to 
draw a pencil through the words & 
substitute for Longman's considera- 
tion these words "so long as Mr. 
Longman shall be willing to pro- 
duce fresh editions" or words of that 
kind. 

As to profits you will not get £10 
under a half profit agreement. These 
agreements are one-sided & the well 
known & often exposed cover for 
fraudulent charges & statements in 
the printing, paper, advertising, & 
sales. You had much better offer L 



11 



the Copyright for £50. down, if it is 
only a short tale. Yrs vy truly 

Charles Reade 

Then he adds after his signature 
these words: 

You must not interpret this to the 
personal disadvantage of Mr. Long- 
man. No publisher has ever sent an 
author an honest account in the 
memory of man; nor ever will: And 
the half profit agreement leaves the 
author at the mercy of the Pub's in- 
tegrity, which has no existence in 
matters of acct. 

In volume two we have inserted 
this letter which has a direct refer- 
ence to The Cloister and the Hearth : 

Oct 25 [1861] 
Dear Sirs, 

There is a run on "Cloister & 
Hearth" and I shall be much obliged 
if you will arrange with Mr. Day 
so as to lose not an hour unneces- 
sarily. I am Yrs sincerely 

Charles Reade 



12 



Please number the volumes of sec- 
ond edition more clearly as some 
mistakes have been made. 

In the third volume has been 
placed the following theatrical let- 
ter. Reade wrote plays himself and 
all his life had much to do with the 
stage. This letter shows him in the 
light of a thrifty business manager: 

Queen's Theatre 
March 25, 
Dear Sir, 

As requested I enclose a private 
Box for Mrs. Seymour's Benefit. 
At 7. Rachel the reaper. 
At 8.20 The Wandring Heir. 

The packet I sent to you consisted 
of two distinct things. Free admis- 
sions for tomorrow, and cards for 
Mrs. Seymour's Benefit on Friday. 

The latter we sell you : therefore if 
we have sent too many, please return 
the superfluous ones. I sent several 
amphitheatre cards : because our am- 
phitheatre is only IS. and a respecta- 



13 



ble workman, of whom you have so 
many is very comfortable there. 
Yours very truly &c 
With thanks 

Charles Reade 

This letter was written to E. Pigott, 
an examiner of plays, and can now 
be found in the fourth volume of our 

set I 

19 Albert Gale 
Knightsbridge 

Aug 24 
Dear Piggott, 

Many thanks for your most kind 
and friendly letter. 

I am quite aware you can render 
me no direct assistance in cases of 
Piracy. But there is no reason why 
you should be cheated out of your 
fees, nor I out of the right of pirati- 
cal MSS. Here we can help each 
other. I believe 100 unlicensed plays 
are played every year and now I 
have a friend in the Lord Chamber- 
lain's office I shall go into that 
business irrespective of my personal 
interests. 



14 



Meantime. Here are two more 
unlicensed rascalities for you. 
Queen's Theatre 
Dublin 
Lessee Fitzroy Wallace 
"destroyed by 
Drink" 

Adelphi Theatre 

Liverpool Lessee E Trevanion 
Crime and Virtue 
or the effect of 
Drink. 

Pray extort your dues and a MS. 
from these caitiffs, and by and by 
perhaps I may catch one of these 
jail-birds out of bounds. At present 
I am Yrs. very truly 

Charles Reade 

excerpts from the cloister and 
the hearth 

Extracts from a book, no matter 
how well made they may be, give one 
but a faint idea of the contents. This 
is quite true with reference to The 
Cloister and the Hearth. There are 



15 



however many quotable things in this 
book and we offer no apology for 
the following extracts. If the read- 
ing of them here will introduce you 
to the book itself we will feel we 
have not made the excerpts in vain. 

Not a day passes over the earth, 
but men and women of no note do 
great deeds, speak great words, and 
sufifer noble sorrows. Of these ob- 
scure heroes, philosophers, and mar- 
tyrs, the greater part will never be 
known till that hour, when many that 
are great shall be small, and the small 
great; but of others the world's 
knowledge may be said to sleep : 
their lives and characters lie hidden 
from nations in the annals that record 
them. 

What God takes from us still 
seems better than what he spares to 
us: that is to say, men are by nature 
unthankful — and women silly. 

The house is never built for less 
than the builder counted on. 

The Hollanders were always an 



16 



original and leading people. They 
claim to have invented printing 
(wooden type), oil-painting, liberty, 
banking, gardening, etc. Above all, 
they invented cleanliness. 

Where there have been no pains 
there needs no reward. 

A heart to share joy and grief with 
is a great comfort to man or woman. 

The beginning of a quarrel, where 
the parties are bound by affection 
though opposed in interest and senti- 
ment, is comparatively innocent; 
both are perhaps in the right at first 
starting, and then it is that a calm, 
judicious friend, capable of seeing 
both sides, is a gift from Heaven. 
For, the longer the dissension en- 
dures, the wider and deeper it grows 
by the fallibility and irascibility of 
human nature: these are not confined 
to either side, and finally the invaria- 
ble end is reached — both in the 
wrong. 

Women are creatures brimful of 
courage. Theirs is not exactly the 
same quality as manly courage; that 
would never do, hang it all; we 



17 



should have to give up trampling on 
them. No ; it is a vicarious courage. 
They never take part in a bull-fight 
by any chance; but it is remarked 
that they sit at one unshaken. 

Chattering tongues mar wisest 
counsels. 

Affection sharpens the wits; and 
often it has made an innocent person 
more than a match for the wily. 

Where is the woman that cannot 
act a part? Where is she who will 
not do it, and do it well, to save the 
man she loves? Nature on these 
great occasions comes to the aid of 
the simplest of the sex, and teaches 
her to throw dust in Solomon's eyes. 

Sweetest of all her charms is a 
woman's weakness to a manly heart. 

The courage, like the talent, of 
common men, runs in a narrow 
groove. Take them but an inch out 
of that, and they are done. 

Strange that things beautiful should 
be terrible and deadly. The eye of 
the boa-constrictor while fascinating 
its prey is lovely. 

Life and liberty, while safe, are 



18 



little thought of: for why? They 
are matters of course. Endangered, 
they are rated at their value. In this, 
too, they are like sunshine, whose 
beauty men notice not at noon when 
it is greatest, but towards evening 
when it lies in flakes of topaz under 
shady elms. Yet it is feebler then; 
but gloom lies beside it, and contrast 
reveals its fire. 

A little affability adorns even 
beauty. 

A friend like thee, where on earth's 
face shall I find another. 

He was a Frenchman, and despised 
every other nation, laws, inmates and 
customs included. 

Men of any spirit at all are like 
the wild boar; he will run from a 
superior force; owing perhaps to his 
not being an ass : but if you stick to 
his heels too long, and too close, and, 
in short, bore him, he will whirl, 
and come tearing at a multitude of 
hunters, and perhaps bore you. 

Well-a-day, the sands how swift 
they run when the man is bent over 
earthly toys. 



19 



All we see around us calls for faith. 
Have then a little patience! We 
shall soon know all. 

Alas! here is a kind face I must 
never look to see again on earth; a 
kind voice gone from mine ear and 
my heart forever. There is nothing 
but meeting and parting in this sor- 
rowful world. 

Our travellers on their weary way 
experience that, which most of my 
readers will find in the longer jour- 
ney of life, viz., that stirring events 
are not evenly distributed over the 
whole road, but come by fits and 
starts, and, as it were, in clusters. 
To some extent this may be because 
they draw one another by links more 
or less subtle. But there is more 
in it than that. It happens so. Life 
is an intermittent fever. 

Men look forward to death, and 
back upon past sickness, with differ- 
ent eyes. Item, when men drive a 
bargain, they strive to get the sunny 
side of it; it matters not one straw 
whether it is with man or Heaven 
they are bargaining. 



20 



^ 



Trust then to me ; these little doves 
they are my study day and night; 
happy the man whose wife taketh her 
fling before wedlock; and who trip- 
peth up the altar-steps instead of 
down 'em. Marriage, it always 
changeth them for better or else for 
worse. 

Making others wretched had not 
made him happy. It seldom does. 

An old woman, that has seen life 
and all its troubles, is a sovereign 
blessing by a sorrowful young wo- 
man's side. She knows what to say, 
and what to avoid. She knows how 
to soothe her and interest her. 

You know how foolish those are 
that love. 

Some are old in heart at forty, 
some are young at eighty. 

Strange as it may appear to the 
unobservant, our hearts warm more 
readily to those we have benefited 
than to our benefactors. 

Certainty is often painful, but sel- 
dom, like suspense, intolerable. 

Life is a school, and the lesson 
ne'er done; we put down one fault 



21 



and take up t'other, and so go blun- 
dering here, and blundering there, 
till we blunder into our graves, and 
there's an end of us. 

Gunpowder has spoiled war. War 
was always detrimental to the solid 
interests of mankind. But in old 
times it was good for something; it 
painted well, sang divinely, fur- 
nished Iliads. But invisible butch- 
ery, under a pall of smoke a furlong 
thick, who is any better for that? 

What the servant says the master 
should still stand to. 

In matters of honest craft things 
can not be done quick and well. 

Each sex has its form of cruelty; 
man's is more brutal and terrible; 
but shallow women, that have neither 
read nor suffered, have an unmuscu- 
lar barbarity of their own (where no 
feeling of sex steps in to overpower 
it). This defect, intellectual per- 
haps rather than moral, has been 
mitigated in our day by books, es- 
pecially by able works of fiction; for 
there are two roads to that highest 
effort of intelligence. Pity; Experi- 



22 



ence of sorrows, and Imagination, by 
which alone we realize the grief we 
never felt. 

Gratitude is not a thing of words. 

Happy the man who has two 
chain-cables; Merit, and Women. 

"Plutarch, he had a wondrous art, 
Francesco." 

"Give me the signor Boccaccio." 

"An excellent narrator, Capitano, 
and writeth exquisite Italian. But in 
spirit a thought too monotonous. 
Monks and nuns were never all un- 
chaste : one or two such stories were 
right pleasant and diverting; but five 
score paint his time falsely, and sad- 
den the heart of such as love man- 
kind. Moreover he has no skill at 
characters. Now this Greek is su- 
preme in that great art: he carveth 
them with pen : and, turning his page, 
see into how real and great a world 
we enter of war, of policy, and busi- 
ness, and love in its own place; for 
with him, as in the great world, men 
are not all running after a wench. 
With this great open field compare 
me not the narrow garden of Boccac- 



23 



cio, and his little mill-round of dis- 
honest pleasure." 

Nay, I care not to be adored by 
an old man. I would liever be loved 
by a young one : of my own choosing. 

A woman has her own troubles, 
as a man has his. 

It is a great thing to open a good 
door in a heart. One good thing 
follows another through the aperture. 

A Catherine is not an unmixed 
good in a strange house. The gov- 
erning power is strong in her. She 
has scarce crossed the threshold ere 
the utensils seem to brighten; the 
hearth to sweep itself; the windows 
to let in more light; and the soul of 
an enormous cricket to animate the 
dwelling-place. But this cricket is 
a Busy Body. And that is a tremen- 
dous character. It has no discrim- 
ination. It sets everything to rights, 
and everybody. Now many things 
are the better for being set to rights. 
But everything is not. Everything 
is the one thing that won't stand be- 
ing set to rights ; except in that calm 
and cool retreat, the grave. 



24 



Maternity. You, who know what 
lies in that word, enlarge my little 
sketch, and see the young mother 
nursing and washing, and dressing 
and undressing, and crowing and 
gambolling with her first-born. 

In the valley of Grindelwald the 
traveller has on one side the perpen- 
dicular Alps, all rock, ice, and ever- 
lasting snow, towering above the 
clouds, and piercing to the sky; on 
his other hand little every-day slopes, 
but green as emeralds, and studded 
with cows, and pretty cots, and life; 
whereas those lofty neighbors stand 
leafless, lifeless, inhuman, sublime. 
Elsewhere sweet commonplaces of 
nature are apt to pass unnoticed; but, 
fronting the grim Alps, they soothe, 
and even gently strike, the mind by 
contrast with their tremendous op- 
posites. 

Penitence abroad is little worth. 
There where we live lie the tempta- 
tions we must defeat, or perish. Not 
fly in search of others more showy, 
but less lethal. Easy to wash the 
feet of strangers, masked ourselves. 



25 



Hard to be merely meek and chari- 
table with those about us. 

A resolute woman is a very resolute 
thing. 

When ye seek favors of the great, 
behoves ye know the very thing ye 
aim at. 

Words never yet painted a likeness 
of despair. 

Humility and a teachable spirit are 
the roads to wisdom. 

Priest, monk, hermit, call thyself 
what thou wilt, to her [mother] thou 
art but one thing; her child. 

The Almighty loves him who 
thinks of others. 

And to think that there are folk in 
the world that have all the beautiful 
things which I have here, yet not 
content. Let them pass six months 
in a hermit's cell, seeing no face of 
man ; then will they find how lovely 
and pleasant this wicked world is; 
and eke that men and women are 
God's fairest creatures. 

Charity profanes nothing; not even 
a church: soils nought, not even a 
church. 



26 



WE HAVE A HOBBY 

We have a hobby. Our friends 
know it, and most of them long ago 
ceased to pity. But we have no 
apologies to make. We believe in 
hobbies. Our days have been hap- 
pier because, in the few hours of 
leisure in a somewhat busy and stren- 
uous life, we have had a few hobbies 
the pursuit of which has yielded 
recreation and pleasure. One who 
possesses a hobby leads a more full 
life. We do not care what that hob- 
by may be — whether it is a passion 
for the collection of snails and bugs, 
or a fondness for books and prints. 
The man with a hobby is a better 
man than he who is without this 
solace. 

And right here permit us to say 



29 



that these fellows with hobbies — 
these collectors of things out of the 
ordinary — are as a rule a benevolent 
lot. While there is a peculiar pleas- 
ure in the thought that you have 
something no one else possesses or 
can possess, yet the true collector is 
ever willing to share his joy with the 
less fortunate. We know there are 
Philistines even in this day who hold 
the contrary. As a class we are 
looked upon as selfish, as living lives 
apart from the many. We are point- 
ed at in places where people congre- 
gate; sometimes we are designated 
as peculiar. It has even been charged 
that we are not averse to acquiring 
treasures by the process of adhesion 
if we can't get them by the usual 
means of gift or purchase. True, 
some of our class, weaker than others, 
at times may acquire a much desired 
prize for less than its true value. But 
we should not be anathematized for 



30 



adding to our possessions that which 
does not make the seller the poorer 
while enriching the buyer. We could 
not — the vast majority of us — re- 
main in business if deprived of the 
privilege of acquiring seeming bar- 
gains. For let it be remembered the 
poor man is entitled to his hobby as 
well as the rich man. There are 
more poor men than rich men. And 
bargains are a necessity to the former 
as well as a joy to the latter. 

But we are wandering. To prove 
that collectors are free from selfish- 
ness we are at this holiday time giv- 
ing our friends the privilege of shar- 
ing with us the pleasures to be found 
in one small line of our collecting — 
that of autograph letters. Our chief 
aim is to secure those written by liter- 
ary celebrities. So far as can be 
done, such letters only are acquired 
as contain some reference to the busi- 
ness of authorship or to books of the 



31 



writers. This rule, however, is not 
adhered to rigidly, as will be noted 
in the case of the letter of Thomas 
Moore, reproduced in this book. 
This letter is in some ways a charm- 
ing one, showing, as it does, the 
human side of this rollicking, be- 
loved Irish poet. It brings us in 
closer touch with him. We are given 
to understand that he was human like 
the rest of us. 

We have in mind in the purchase 
of these letters certain books in which 
they may be inserted. If we have on 
our shelves a first edition of an author 
who has arrived, then the search is 
made leisurely for a letter for that 
particular volume. Sometimes we 
may even buy a book in which to 
place a letter that appeals to us and 
that can be had for a reasonable sum. 
The rule has been adhered to that we 
lay out no extravagant sums for any 
writer's autograph. The pleasure of 



32 



collecting and embellishing is not 
necessarily an expensive one. In 
truth there's more zest in modest 
effort than in lavish expenditure. 
Those people who buy books and 
autographs en bloc, many times 
through dealers who have been given 
orders without limitations, have our 
pity. Every individual collection 
should grow with the collector. It 
should evidence the stages of his de- 
velopment, the changes in his likes 
and dislikes. It should represent the 
slow accumulations of the years of 
his life. 

The following letter is one of the 
most treasured in our collection. It 
was picked up in London some two 
years ago. Data for a proper under- 
standing of it were lacking. For- 
tunately, we were able to get the 
proper knowledge from the writer 
himself while he was a guest at our 
home in January, 1914. As Mr. 



33 



Noyes has kindly noted in the corner 
of the original letter, it was written in 
1902 to Grant Richards of London, 
the publisher of his first book, The 
Loom of YearSj now a very scarce 
volume, and had to do with this pub- 
lication itself. Mr. Noyes told us at 
the time of his visit that we were not 
likely to be able to secure a copy of 
this book. Perhaps he did not grasp 
fully what a persistent American 
collector can accomplish when his 
heart is set on a certain thing. With- 
in a month the coveted volume was in 
our possession. It now differs from 
every other of the five hundred copies 
in the edition in that within its cov- 
ers it holds this letter with its inter- 
esting notation : 

Exeter College 
Oxford 
Dear Sir 

I enclose a cheque for £25 ; I am 
sorry for the delay. In the mean- 
time I have been so successful in 



34 



obtaining subscribers to the book here 
in Oxford that I should be glad to 
know how you would arrange for a 
2nd edition, if the first is exhausted. 
Would a preface, a short one, by 
Laurence Binyon, be of any value to 
the sale of the book. If it would, I 
think I can get one. I am 

Yours sincerely 
Alfred Notes. 

Evidently the proposition for a 
preface by Mr. Binyon, who was con- 
nected with the British Museum, was 
vetoed, for the volume does not con- 
tain a preface. 

The notation made by Mr. Noyes 
on the corner of his original letter 
reads : 

Letter written about first book to 
the publisher. Grant Richards, 1902, 
The Loom of Years. A. N. 

He who has not in days of youth 
made the acquaintance of Thomas 
Moore (1779-1852) has missed some 



35 



delightful moments. While it is said 
that ^'Tommy dearly loved a lord," 
nevertheless this must be taken in the 
light of the fact that he was courted 
by the aristocracy for his wit and 
gayety and was found often in their 
salons. Professor Wilson in those 
charming volumes, Recreations of 
Christopher North^ does not hesitate 
to say: 'Wow, of all the song-writ- 
ers that ever warbled, or chanted, or 
sung, the best, in our estimation, is 
verily none other than Thomas 
Moore." Fond as he was of dining 
and dancing, he was also a hard 
worker. His financial returns were 
adequate, but he was a good spender 
and at times was hard-pressed for 
money. For writing his Irish Melo- 
dies from 1807 to 1834 he received 
£500 a year. Longman, the publish- 
er, agreed to pay him £3000 for 
Lalla Rookh without having seen the 
manuscript. In his latter years he 



36 



was given by the government a pen- 
sion of £300 a year. He was the 
friend of Byron, and this poet makes 
several references to him in his writ- 
ings; e.g., 

What are you doing now, 
Billing or cooing now, 
Sighing or wooing now. 
Which, Tommy Moore? 

The following letter, attached to a 
volume of Moore's poems read by us 
from ''kiver to kiver" in the days of 
youth and possessing for us consid- 
erable sentimental value, lets us into 
the secret that poets are but human, 
after all, like the rest of us : 

Thursday 
July 24.^^ 181 8 
My dear Sir— 

In your various characters of Bill- 
Accepter, Fish-Agent, &c. &c. I keep 
you always fully well employed — I 
now want you to dispatch me, by 
tomorrow night's coach, a good dish 



37 



of fish for Saturday's dinner — Lord 
Lansdowne comes to eat a family 
dinner with us, & a Lord's family 
dinner is a poet's best one, you know 
— So I shall depend upon you, and 
it must come by the mail, or at least 
some coach that arrives at Devizes 
early — make sure of this — Salmon, 
I should suppose, would be best, and 
Lobster. 

I have done another song since, 
prettier still than the other — & I am 
in hopes I shall be able by complet- 
ing the five without them, to keep 
these two for some of our future col- 
lections — You perceive we have got 
rid of our large bill — all by the 
Fudges — I shall however in the 
course of a few days make use of your 
name for a small shot of forty pounds 
or so — Truly yours 

T. Moore 

There not being room at the bot- 
tom of the sheet for a postscript, 
Moore adds one at the top of the 
page: 



38 



If you could buy me a little good 
Coffee for Bessy, I should be glad 
you would send it at the same time 

— a Box, too, of Cinnamon lozenges. 

Bessy was his wife, and a splendid 
one, too. Until his death Moore 
gave her all the devotion of an ardent 
lover. 

The following Ruskin letter has a 
fit abiding place, as we think. It is 
incorporated in a first edition of his 
Queen of the Air, published in 1869, 
a study of Greek myths of cloud and 
storm. In the same volume, as a 
frontispiece, we have placed an orig- 
inal pen and ink drawing made by 
Ruskin while lecturing on art at Ox- 
ford. The book has a binding de- 
signed and executed by Cobden-San- 
derson, and bears his autograph. 
Thus embellished, the book is unique 

— a joy to handle and a volume it is 
a delight to possess. 



39 



John Ruskin (i8 19-1900) created 
the literature of art; he taught peo- 
ple to see the beauties in nature. As 
John C. VanDyke puts it: "He has 
taught several generations to see with 
their eyes, think with their minds, 
and work with their hands." Char- 
lotte Bronte regarded him as "one 
of the few genuine writers of the 
age." 

24th November 58. 
Dear Miss Raine 

I got a kind letter from your father 
sometime ago — which I grieve not 
to have answered, and grieve still 
more at the ill news it contained, of 
his health. Pray tell him how sorry 
I am that this should be so : — I wish 
indeed I could come and see him, and 
lecture & do all you would have me, 
but I am not well myself — a fit of 
successive coughs & colds having 
come upon me v/ith unusual sharp- 
ness, and I dare not come north at 
present — I gave a short address at 
Cambridge the other day: but in go- 



40 



ing about the College cloisters, lost 
my voice, and have been hoarse ever 
since — (three weeks, nearly) — I 
am getting better — but I shall have 
to give up going about for the pres- 
ent. Be sure if I come north at all 
— I will not pass Durham: and will 
make myself as useful there as your 
father and you think I ought — or 
can. — Present my sincere regards to 
your father and to your sisters when 
you write to them & with kindest re- 
membrances from my father & moth- 
er believe me 

Most truly yours, 

John Ruskin 

"Leigh Hunt, most vivid of poets 
and most cordial of critics," is the 
way Prof. John Wilson puts it in his 
Recreations of Christopher North. 
Hunt (1784-1859) was the friend of 
Lamb, and Shelley, and Keats, and 
Byron. Like his own Abou Ben 
Adhem, he was a man who loved his 
fellow-men, and the pleasant letters 
we have in his autograph are highly 



41 



prized. One adorns a first edition of 
The Months^ 1821 ; the other is in- 
serted in a first edition of Men, Wo- 
men and Booksj 1847. 
Here are his letters : 

Hammersmith — April 7. 
My dear Sir. 

I have seen and looked through 
the Life of Campbell, as well as read 
the particular passages relating to the 
Pleasures of Hope, and I find no 
mention made of the object of your 
enquiry. Should you like however 
to see the book yourself, and examine 
it more closely than I have just now 
time to do, I will do myself the pleas- 
ure of sending it to you. 

Very sincerely yours, 

Leigh Hunt 

Kensington — Jan.y ist [1848] 
My dear Sir. 

A happy new year to you, & a 
thousand more kind greetings & 
thanks. I should have sent you them 
the moment I received your notice of 
my letter, but was in the act of writ- 



42 



ing against time, & am so still. In- 
deed I happen to be in a perfect 
"sea of troubles," with business, & 
haste, & influenza (to take the muscle 
out of it) & illness in my family, & 
unsettledness (looking out for a 
house) ; but towards the spring, I 
reckon upon emerging; & I shall 
then, with your leave, come & shake 
you by the hand, & ask you to become 
the personal as well as literary friend 
of 
Your truly obliged humble servant, 
Leigh Hunt. 

Robert Bridges (1844 — ) ^^Y 
not have gained a wide reputation or 
have written for a large circle, but 
his position as present poet-laureate 
of England makes this letter of inter- 
est. It is inserted in a first edition of 
his Eros & Psyche^ 1885. 

Yattendon Newbery 
Dec 6. 90. 
Dear Sir 

I am much obliged to you for your 
letter. I had seen Mr. Watson's re- 



43 



view, which was sent to me by an- 
other friend of his, and I sh^ have 
written to thank him for it if I had 
thought that I had any right to do so. 

I sh^ be glad if you w^ convey my 
thanks to him, and tell him that the 
two stanzas which he very justly ob- 
jected to as being incomplete in them- 
selves were the original two first 
stanzas of "The Windmill" a poem 
he will find not far off. I sh^ have 
noted that they were a fragment. 
But I thought it was sufficiently ap- 
parent. 

I have instructed the printer to add 
a few words to the note at the end 
of the volume in the next edition to 
this effect. 

With many thanks believe me 
Yours truly ROBT Bridges. 
J. D. Ford Esq. 
Liverpool. 
P. S. 

Excuse my writing so short a note. 
I am very busy just now. 

Thomas Hardy (1840 — ) furnish- 
es us with a short note which some 



44 



day may be inserted in a first edition 
of Desperate Remedies^ if we ever 
get enough money to buy that book. 

From Thos. Hardy, lo : 4 : '06 

Max Gate, 
Dorchester. 
Dear Sir: 

I am unable to recommend any 
handbook for the cultivation of the 
Poetic Faculty. Reading good poet- 
ry is the usual course. Your pupil 
might also read the articles on "Poet- 
ry" in the Encyclopedia Brittannica, 
& in Chamber's Cyclopedia. 

Yours truly T. H. 

Christina G. Rossetti (1830- 1894) 
ranks as a poet with Elizabeth Bar- 
rett Browning. The work of the 
latter is probably more widely known, 
but that of the former has a higher 
degree of artistic finish. Both won 
positions high up in that temple of 
fame in which are enthroned the 
greatest poets of the Victorian era. 



45 



This brief .note in Miss Rossetti's 
handwriting shows she took an in- 
terest in things other than poetry: 

1 66 Albany St. N. W. 
Saturday night. 
Dear Sir 

I fear, unless you have heard direct 
from Mrs. Knox or Miss Parkes, that 
we must give up hope of their favor- 
ing the Association's volume with 
contributions, as I have not received 
aught from them. Mr. Scott has 
written me a most kind note of sym- 
pathy in the good cause but does not 
find anything to send us. Wishing 
you all good success I remain 
Faithfully yours 
Christina G. Rossetti. 

This letter written by Coventry 
Patmore (1823- 1896), a mystic who 
wrote mostly for the elect, some day 
will, we hope, find an abiding place 
in a copy of his Angel in the House, 
a finished piece of writing; according 
to John Ruskin '^the sweetest analysis 



46 



we possess of quiet, modern domestic 

feeling": 

British Museum 
January 4th 1864. 
Dear Sir, 

I am glad you like my books so 
much that you think my signature 
worth having. I am, 

Dear Sir, 
Yours faithfully, 
Coventry Patmore. 
A. Vogue, Esq 

The following letter of Sir F. Sey- 
mour Haden (1818-1910), an etcher 
who ranks with Whistler, some day 
will be framed with an etching we 
possess by this great artist: 

62 Sloan St. S. W. 
July 8, 1874 
Dear Sir: 

If you can favour me with a visit 
to my Studio No 11, The Avenue^ 
Fulham Road on Sunday afternoon 
at about 5 p. m. I will, with much 
pleasure, show you what Etchings I 
have by me. 



47 



The Avenue is a row of trees with- 
in a gateway immediately opposite 
the steps of the Cancer Hospital. 
I am, dear sir 

Yr faithful servant 
F. Seymour Haden 

We pity the type-setters whose 
duty it was to put in type the writ- 
ings of Bulwer Lytton (1803- 1873) 
if the chirography of the letter we 
possess is a fair sample. Bulwer 
Lytton was a versatile genius — nov- 
elist, poet, dramatist, politician, ora- 
tor. And he made good in all these 
lines. This letter was written to the 
editor of The Sun^ London, and re- 
fers to the arrangement of a collected 
edition of his works : 

Poste restente 
Sep. 6 1867 Eaux Bonnes 

Pyrenees 
France 
My dear Kent 

Here I am. I caught cold by the 
way which fell on my chest as usual 



& has delayed the taking the waters. 
But I am now better & begin today. 

The Place is very pretty but very 
dull. Please to send me The Sun 
directed here. Not a newspaper 
(English) to be had in the place — 
also send me Bentleys memorandum 
of agreement — 

I am sadly at a loss to arrange the 
best mode of printing the contents of 
my books. But on the whole agree 
with Fowler that the Caxtoniana be- 
ing the best & maturest should begin 
but that name be dropped. I pro- 
pose omitting the last short paper in 
Caxtoniana on the theory of conser- 
vatism — & printing instead a long 
& elaborate Dialogue on the Influ- 
ence of Love upon Literature & Life 
— it is perhaps rather too learned but 
is good & carefully composed — it is 
long & will take 60 pages — It has 
not been yet published tho I have 
it in type. It was omitted from Cax- 
toniana the vol. being large eno' 
without. The Student might follow 
Caxtoniana, & the Criticisms come 
last — followed only by Blanchard & 



49 



Schiller should I think the last [can't 
decipher it]. I left all material with 
Fowler except that Life of Schiller 
& Blackwood writes me word that 
he cant find a copy anywhere. I 
have written to Fowler to see if he 
has not a copy & if so to send it. 
And if he has not one Bentley must 
try & hunt up one — & send it here — 
When the mem is signed & he has 
the Books I should like his idea of 
the order of arrangement & title — I 
hope this will find you quite recov- 
ered — God bless you 

Ever affectionately yrs 

Lytton 



50 



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